This is Scientific Americans, 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hawking.

They say that lions are the king of the jungle. But a recent study shows that a single

spritz of oxytocin, a hormone known to promote social bonding, renders even the most

ornary alpha, a total pussycat. The findings appear in the journal, Eye Science.

The greatest thing about watching lions is that lions are so openly and extravagantly

affectionate with each other. Craig Packer, Director of the Lion Center

at the University of Minnesota. He's been traveling to the Serengeti since the 1970s to study

the social behavior of these big cats. They just rub each other with their foreheads,

their chins, or just in each other's faces. I mean, they're just really into each other.

And then when they calm down and it's time to go back to sleep, you know, one will

flop down and that will flop on top of it. So it's very endearing.

I've always loved lions. Jessica Burtkhardt is a grad student in Packer's Pack.

But what is it about lions that is so different than their closest relatives of the leopard

and then their next closest the tiger who are completely solitary?

And the first thing they came to mind was oxytocin.

They call oxytocin the love hormone, but that sounds like we have potion number nine.

I prefer to think it is the affection hormone. If you have a nice warm hug, that burst

feeling you get, that's oxytocin. And so the lions would be like a perfect example

of a species that you want to try to see what you could do with the oxytocin.

They conducted the study at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa, where their first challenge

was figuring out how to get the hormone into the lions.

Jessica surprised me with this perfume sprayer, which I just thought was so ingenious.

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